Conveyancing soliditor on maternity leave

2005eyeball

If we'd had enough notice, I think we would have found another solicitor but only found out last week.


I am feeling more & more peeved - we received all of the transfer documents today for our sale & purchase. Our purchase is quite complicated, we've been negotiating re. land included etc. The documents we received today included an out of date plan, if we hadn't noticed & signed, we would have owned about a quarter of the land we were expecting. And I had already pointed out that the numbering of clauses didn't follow on, i.e. one page stopped at 5 and then the next page started at 10. This was because clauses had been taken out of the documents since first drafted but presumably if we signed a document (which has no page numbers), the seller could have inserted another page with clauses numbered 6 - 9 and held us to all sorts of things that we had no idea about (pages relate to restrictive covenants). Surely this is the kind of thing that a solicitor should be looking for? And as I had pointed this out to her, she should have double checked? She replied saying that the clauses on her copy were correctly numbered but they obviously weren't.


It's just all starting to feel a bit like negligence/misconduct. We have the documents which we have signed but now they won't be dealt with until & unless she returns to work in 10 days time or her cover starts in 12 days (completion is in 15 days).


At this point what can we do though? Take the transfer documents elsewhere to another solicitor?

silvercar

All solicitors are required to have a complaints procedure.

Tell her that you are not happy, so giving her the opportunity to put things right. outline the things you are not happy with including no cover in her absence and ask for a response within 7 days and details of her firm's complaints procedure.

If you don't get an adequate response then make a complaint. If you don't get anywhere with any of the above then go to the law society.

If she does conveyancing in general, she must have contacts with another firm for handing mortgages, so maybe she is trying to save money by keeping your work to herself, but will hand you over if pushed.

2005eyeball

Thanks, silvercar, we do have a copy of her complaints procedure but she's now booked to have her induction on Monday so I can't give her 7 days to respond as I already know that she won't be able to respond in that time. She gave us just over a week's notice that she wouldn't be there & we're more concerned with how to get completion achieved than making a complaint at the moment.

2005eyeball

Anyone know anywhere else I can ask advice?

zarf2007

2005eyeball wrote: »

Anyone know anywhere else I can ask advice?

contact the legal ombudsman or SRA


i doubt they will do anything in the short term however.....as moving to a new solicitor would mean starting from scratch your best bet is to stick with her and hope she doesnt experience a difficult birth.....and also another example of the myth that is having a career and being a mother simultaneously.....something has to give, looks like in this case its your house purchase.

its the risk you take going with a one man band, this should be a lesson learned.

Like all aspects of the buying process in England and Wales, this is another example of how the system is a farce.....solicitor could be on holiday/giving birth/on the golf course with little or no redress if it stuffs up peoples lives......

ViolaLass

zarf2007 wrote: »

and also another example of the myth that is having a career and being a mother simultaneously.....something has to give, looks like in this case its your house purchase.

I'm not sure it explodes any myths. All the solicitor had to do in this case was arrange for her cover to start earlier and all would have been well.

silvercar

2005eyeball wrote: »

Thanks, silvercar, we do have a copy of her complaints procedure but she's now booked to have her induction on Monday so I can't give her 7 days to respond as I already know that she won't be able to respond in that time. She gave us just over a week's notice that she wouldn't be there & we're more concerned with how to get completion achieved than making a complaint at the moment.

A complaint would focus her mind on getting your completion done! However mean it sounds, her induction is her problem, not yours.

2005eyeball wrote: »

Anyone know anywhere else I can ask advice?

The Law Society.

zarf2007 wrote: »

contact the legal ombudsman or SRA


i doubt they will do anything in the short term however.....as moving to a new solicitor would mean starting from scratch your best bet is to stick with her and hope she doesnt experience a difficult birth.....and also another example of the myth that is having a career and being a mother simultaneously.....something has to give, looks like in this case its your house purchase.

its the risk you take going with a one man band, this should be a lesson learned.

Like all aspects of the buying process in England and Wales, this is another example of how the system is a farce.....solicitor could be on holiday/giving birth/on the golf course with little or no redress if it stuffs up peoples lives......

Solicitors should have back up procedures in place, particularly for events that they have planned for months. There really is no excuse for this.

It is not the fact that she is a one person operation or a mother with a career, it is the fact that she hasn't put the necessary cover in place.

I don't agree that you would have to start again, the paperwork could be passed to the new solicitor.

2005eyeball

I think I will call around some solicitors on Monday, I do have the transfer paperwork here, all completed so I think at this stage I need someone to send this to our seller/buyer and to manage the receipt of sale money, redemption of existing mortgage & payment for new property, so nothing that someone new couldn't take over fairly easily.

2005eyeball

Quick update - she is "back at work" but of course didn't do any work last week so has had to pick up on queries & consequently exchange didn't happen yesterday as planned. Spoke to her assistant who said our mortgage company were holding things up by not providing redemption figure. I called mortgage company, they said they'd had no request & could provide figure within the hour (which they have now done). I'm sure that had she been in work (without having had a baby, not suggesting she should have returned to work last week!) or had cover in place, that would have been followed up.


As you can imagine I am writing a long complaint that I will send in once we have completed.


I wanted to ask whether I am right in thinking that of all of the issues we've had, it's the mis-numbering of clauses in the transfer document that could have been the most serious? Or failing to pick up that sale prices were incorrect (total correct but wrongly allocated across buildings that we're buying under separate title)? Or sending the wrong plan that reduced the amount of land we'd have bought by 75%?! Just wondering which order to write my complaint in!

silvercar

1. land
2. sale prices allocation (could have tax implications)
3. misnumbering of clauses (provided no pages were missed out)